A couple of years ago, listening to the radio as I drove from Austin to La Grange, I heard on the news the latest version of a story I’ve been hearing — and reporting — for decades: Lawmakers in Washington, yet again, had failed to reach agreement on legislation designed to reform the nation’s broken immigration procedures.

Pulling into the attractive little town on the banks of the Colorado — La Grange was built up by Czech and German immigrants in the 1850s — I got to wondering whether any other place in the country had come up with a more constructive approach to the immigration dilemma (more constructive than a sclerotic Congress under both parties, more constructive than Gov. Greg Abbott’s scheme to militarize the border).

That quest led me to conversations via phone and email with the office of Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and immigrant-assistance groups in Utah cities and towns. I learned about the state’s New Americans initiative, a program designed to welcome documented newcomers and to help integrate them into communities without disrupting the local culture. The initiative was as pragmatic as it was beneficent, since Utah’s vibrant economy needs all the workers it can get.

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That same Republican governor, now serving his second term, has been in the news lately because of his calm and earnest comments in the wake of the murder of Charlie Kirk during an appearance on a Utah college campus. The governor’s remarks were in vivid contrast to the predictably wrathful invective from President Donald Trump.

Here’s Trump: “The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical, because they don’t want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible, and they’re politically savvy.”

Here’s Cox: “To my young friends, you are inheriting a country where politics feels like rage. Your generation has an opportunity to build a........

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